Blockchain Bust: Microsoft Joins IBM with Blockchain Shutdown
A few years ago, Blockchain was going to change the world with its distributed database and ledger technology. At the time, cryptocurrencies were taking off and every cloud giant found themselves chasing the technology and trying to shove it into every conversation as well.
But the reality is that Blockchain is not a good database for the commercial markets and unless you are launching a new cryptocurrency, the use of the technology is minimal, at best. I am positive there are useful applications of the technology but Microsoft is bowing out and shutting down the Azure Blockchain Service.
Announced on the Azure Blockchain Service documentation page and first spotted by Mary Jo, the shutdown will occur on September 10th of this year. If you are using this service, Microsoft says that you will need to migrate your ledger data to an alternative service.
Microsoft is not the only company that has given up on commercializing blockchain. IBM, according to a report from CoinDeks, gave up on Blockchain earlier this year. IBM promoted its technology heavily with advertisements that boasted the ability to track individual coffee beans from plant to home – the problem is that a conventional database can also do this and can process them more efficiently.
I can’t fault either IBM or Microsoft diving head-first into Blockchain as the buzzword was everywhere and they did not want to be left out in the cold if the market truly did takeoff. But this road ends with the technology not being applicable for the commercial markets with both IBM and Microsoft shutting down their services.